Below are listed some of the Christian urban legends mentioned by ICR in
their Science, Scripture and Salvation radio program on 1999-APR-17:9
Charles Darwin's deathbed conversion: A woman by the name of Lady Hope allegedly
visited Darwin shortly before he died and heard his deathbed conversion to Christianity.
This event might have happened, but it is extremely doubtful. Lady Hope did visit Darwin,
but it was originally believed to be "in the fall of 1881, about 6 months before
Darwin died." 1Many historians believe that he had
lost his faith completely some 30 years before his death, when his beloved daughter Annie
died. One researcher, Richard Rorty, tracked down over 100 occurrences of the legend, and
successfully showed that Lady Hope (Elizabeth Cotton) did exist, and probably did visit
Darwin near the end of his life. But he discounts the possibility that Darwin abandoned
his Agnostic beliefs. His family energetically denied his
conversion. His daughter Henrietta commented in 1922: "I was present
at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any
illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no
influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted
any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of
his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. . . . The whole story has no
foundation whatever." 2 The fable appeared in the 1955-OCT issue of the Reformation
Review and in the 1957-FEB issue of the Record of the Free Church of
Scotland. It circulates widely on the Internet via Email and is seen on
many creation science web sites.
Charles Darwin confesses evolution is a hoax: We received an
E-mail in 2003-SEP which said that evolution is a hoax. Darwin just "thought
it up" and presented it as truth even though he knew it had no
evidence to back it up. It is doubtful that anyone reading Darwin's
books (On the origin of species, The descent of man, The voyage of
the Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researchers, Charles Darwin's
Zoology Notes and Specimen Lists from H.M.S. Beagle, and his
autobiography) could come to this conclusion. His finding that
evolution happened and happens through natural selection is based on a
massive number of observations of nature. There is a second indicator
that Darwin was serious about his theory: why would he have exposed
himself to such hatred and vilification from religious sources if he did
not believe that his conclusions were accurate?
The missing day of Joshua: This urban
legend refers to a computer program at NASA which experienced an apparent bug.
In some versions of the legend, Mr. Harold Hill, president of the
Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore Maryland publicized the event. The NASA computers were running a program that computed
the locations of the sun, moon, and planets at any time in the future or
past. The purpose of the program was to prevent artificial satellites from
colliding with these objects. This allegation is a good indication that
the story is an urban legend. Even satellites which are in
geosynchronous orbit are only 22,241 miles (35,786 kilometers) above the
surface of the earth,
whereas the moon is more than ten times further away, and the sun and planets
are tens of millions of miles from earth. 11 So there is no possibility of
a collision, and thus no need for such a program. The legend maintains
that the program allegedly failed
consistently at a specific date in the past. Exactly 23 hours and 20
minutes was missing back in the time of Joshua. Someone at NASA
allegedly went back to his/her office, read
Joshua 10:12-13, (which talks about an interval of missing time
approximately one day in duration) and the account of Isaiah's visit to
Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:8-11 when God was said to have caused the sun to go backwards by
10 degrees and produce an additional 40 minutes lost time. This information
accounted precisely for the entire loss of time. The main problem with this legend is that computer programs couldn't fail in
this way, even if a day were missing; the program would continue to subtract dates in times
in increments of 24 hours. 12
NASA's Public Affairs office has stated that "There is no truth to
the recurring story that NASA uncovered a lost day in the movement of the
Earth." However, Harold Hill publicized the legend in one of his books "How
to Live Like a Kings' Kid." 13
Snopes.com comments that this is a very important urban legend for those
who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible:
It shows that the Bible is literally true, even though its
description of missing time seems very strange to-day.
It shows that the Bible knows more about science than do the
scientists. Scientists and religion collided and the Bible is proven
superior.
Unfortunately to Bible literalists, the legend is not true.
Janet Reno critical of Christians: This rumor became public in a
1993 conservative Christian newsletter. It was later widely circulated by
Email and Fax. It involved former Attorney
General Janet Reno being interviewed on 60 Minutes. She allegedly
defined what a cult member is:
A cultist is one who has a strong belief in
the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ; who frequently attends Bible
studies; who has a high level of financial giving to a Christian cause;
who home schools for their children; who has accumulated survival foods
and has a strong belief in the Second Amendment; and who distrusts big
government. Any of these may qualify (a person as a cultist) but certainly
more than one would cause us to strongly look at this person as a threat,
and his family as being in a risk situation that qualified for government
interference. Waco was one of those situations that qualified under our
definition of people being at risk that necessitates government action to
save them."
According to the Justice department, the controversial statement first
appeared in the "Paul Revere Newsletter" published by the
Christian Defense League in Flora IL in its 1993-AUG issue. 3
The facts are that Ms. Reno had
never appeared on 60 Minutes prior to the time that the rumor started
to circulate. She avoids using the term "cult" and
"cultist." She as never defined either of them in public. The
story was triggered by a newsletter in Illinois who later printed a
retraction. 10 Unfortunately,
once urban legends are launched they are unstoppable.
Earthquakes are increasing: The rumor is that earthquakes have been
increasing in frequency and/or intensity in recent years. This legend is often heard in
connection with end-time prophecy - predictions about a coming
end-of-the-world scenario.
This is commonly called TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It). Conservative
Christians generally interpret Matthew 24:6-16 as predicting the precursors that will be
observed prior to the tribulation, rapture, second coming of Jesus, war of Armageddon,
etc. Matthew 24:7 states: "...there will be earthquakes in diverse places."
Near the close of the 20th century, many religious conservative anticipated the end of the world in their immediate future,
perhaps in the year 2000. They naturally assume that the Bible's predictions refer to the
present time, and that earthquakes are currently on the increase. Actually, they are
decreasing. Geologist Steve Austin said on the ICR program that he has a data base
containing information on about 4 million earthquakes. Their frequency has been decreasing
during the 20th century.
Vultures multiply in the valley of Armageddon: According to the
Book of
Revelation, massive armies will converge on this valley to wage war. The vulture legend
has been traced to a Christian tract published in the 1970's. It said that ornithologists
have observed that vultures in that area have been laying twice as many eggs as normal.
The suggestion is that the birds are building up the population of scavengers, preparing
for an upcoming war with its availability of dead bodies to munch on. The story, of
course, is groundless.
The hell hole: The story seems to have been broadcast on
three episodes of a Trinity Broadcasting Network program in the early
1990s. Trinity also published an article on their Internet mailing list. It
was allegedly translated from the original Finnish newspaper Ammennusastia.
The story involves a team of geologists in Siberia who
were drilling a well 14.4 kilometers (9 miles) into the earth to study the makeup of the earth's crust.
They
lowered microphones into the hole and were stunned to hear the screams of people suffering
in horrible agony. They could only assume that they had reached Hell and were listening to
the suffering of countless billions of people being tortured without any hope of relief or
mercy. Project leader Dr. Azzacov allegedly said: "The deep center
of the earth is hollow!... Temperatures of 1,100 degrees C (2,000 degrees F)
were reported...we could hear thousands, perhaps millions, in the
background, of suffering souls screaming." The information we
are gathering is so surprising, that we are sincerely afraid of what we
might find down there." Half of the scientists allegedly refused to
continue drilling.
A newspaper article in Finland added more details: A luminous gas shot up
from the drill hole. A brilliant being with bat wings then coalesced, with
the words in Russian: "I have conquered" visible against
the sky. 5 The Ship of Fools website personnel
traced the story back through a series of letters to editors and various
Christian newsletters. The originator of the "bat out of hell"
addition admitted that it was a fabrication, intended as a joke to prove how
some religious folk will accept a totally outrageous story without checking it out.
The Biblical Archaeology Review printed a story about the Well to Hell
story, intending it to be humorous. They figured that the story was so
outrageous that nobody would treat it seriously. But many of their readers
did.
Of course, there was no deep well to Hell, and no sounds of the damned.
However, you can hear an online recording that is claimed to contain
the screams of the inhabitants of Hell. 4
Discovery of Noah's ark: If the Bible story of the flood is true then
the ark touched down on one of the mountains of Ararat. One would expect some remains of
the ark could be found by simply inspecting the mountains and locating the wreckage. The
climate in the vicinity is dry. Some wood would survive
intact. Many people have claimed to see the ark; some have even brought back wood samples.
But strange things have happened: everyone's camera seems to have broken down after they
found the evidence. Nobody seems able to recall exactly where the remains were found.
There is, in fact, no hard evidence that the ark has been found. Perhaps,
someday, someone will bring along a GPS location device when they find
the ark. Then they could record precisely where it is within a few
meters, and easily return to the site.
Radio-carbon testing: This is a reverse CUL; it is a rumor that is
anti-conservative Christian in nature. Rather than support the estimates by
many Christian and Jewish conservatives that the
earth is between 5 and 10 millennia old, this legend says that radio-carbon dating has determined that the
age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years. This is not true. Radio-carbon dating loses
accuracy as you go farther back into the past. Beyond about 50,000 BCE, it is useless.
Scientists compute older dates by using longer lived radio isotopes, like potassium-argon or
iridium-lead.
Proctor & Gamble and Satanism: TheP & G logo
was originally a cross within a circle - a symbol used on one of their 19th
century products: star candles. Over time, the cross evolved into a star, then the single
star became 13 stars - one for each of the 13 American colonies. A man in the moon was
added around the end of the 19th century; this was a widespread image at the
time - something like the "smiley face" is today. The
present logo design was created in 1930.
Rumors started to circulate in 1980 that P & G had been brought out by the Unification Church. The legend then took an sudden, interesting twist. The
logo was said to be a Satanic symbol. The novel Michelle
Remembers had been published about this time. It was presented as a documentary of Satanic Ritual Abuse, and triggered a Satanic panic throughout North
America. The P & G story expanded to include an allegation that the
company was
supporting Satanic cults with 10% of their profits. Then, an executive of the company was
said to have admitted that "due to the openness of our society,"
he was announcing his company's connection with Satanism on a TV talk show. No one was
quite able to specify exactly which show or which episode was involved.
It was said that you could connect the
13 stars with lines that would spell out 666, the number associated with the Antichrist in
the biblical Book of Revelation. Looking at the beard of the old man with a mirror,
the
number 666 is said to be visible. The chairman of the board of P & G was supposed to
have sold his soul to the Devil. "Proctor & Gamble worked very hard to
counteract the rumors, issuing press releases, instigating legal action and even
soliciting the support of leading Christian fundamentalists who announced their faith in
the purity of the company." 5By early 1991, the
company had answered over 150,000 telephone calls and letters concerning the myth. In the
early 1990's a couple in Kansas was found to have spread the rumor; P & G was awarded
$75,000 in damages. They have filed at least 15 lawsuits against individual
rumor mongers.
A trial began on 1999-MAY-3 in which Procter & Gamble are suing Amway distributors
for allegedly reviving the Satanic rumors in 1995. 6
P & G
spokesperson Elaine Plummer commented: "It's a malicious lie that erodes the
trust of customers and has cost us millions of dollars in sales." Defense
attorney Charles Babcock replied: "This rumor was started in churches...and Amway
didn't have a thing to do with it. A few Amway independent distributors talked about the
rumor - not in a mean-spirited way but in an informational way.''
The latest rumor is that the head of P&G appeared on the Sally Jesse
Raphael Show on 1998-MAR-1. He allegedly repeated the 1980 comments: that his
company was associated with the Church of Satan, that a large portion of their
profits are donated to the Church. When asked whether this openness would
cause economic consequences, he allegedly replied "There are not
enough Christians in the United States to make a difference." The executive producer of "Sally"
has issued a statement saying that no
executive from P&G has eve appeared on the show.
Variations of this rumor involve Ray Kroc of McDonalds, and an executive
from Liz Clairborn; both are alleged to have Satanic connections. Merv
Griffin, 60 Minutes, and Oprah Winfrey are other shows where P&G
interviews are alleged to have occurred. Every element of the rumor is completely baseless. 7,8
"Federal Trial Opens Against Amway," Associated Press, 1999-MAY-3
Procter and Gamble have an essay on the rumor, along with many letters
from talk show hosts and religious leaders at: http://www.pg.com/rumor/index.html
The Institute of Creation Research (ICR) is a Fundamentalist
Christian organization which promotes creation science: the belief that God
created the earth, its life forms and the rest of the universe about six to
ten thousand years ago. Their radio program,Science, Scripture and Salvation
is heard on hundreds of conservative religious radio stations in the U.S.
The episode on 1999-APR-17 dealt with what they called "Christian Urban
Legends." Their web site is at: http://www.icr.org
